


Paying Your Debts

by monimala



Category: The Young and the Restless
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, Discussion of Abortion, F/M, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-15 22:32:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18082169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monimala/pseuds/monimala
Summary: Set around February 2019, while Lola is in a coma and J.T.'s trial is going on. A one-night stand between Kyle and Mariah results in what most soap one-night stands result in: utter panic!She can’t think about this right now. She can’t make a decision this fast. Not without telling Kyle. Not without telling Tessa.*This is absolutely a Kyle/Mariah fic—with their other relationships taking a backseat.





	1. Chapter 1

She takes three tests. Three different brands. The results are all the same. Plus sign. Two pink lines. Pregnant. _Pregnant_. Fuck. Mariah’s first impulse is to flail into the kitchen, grab the tequila off the top of the fridge, and down three shots. One for each answer. Okay, no, her first impulse is to wash her hands. And she gives into that, scrubbing and soaping under a flow of hot water until her skin is pink. The tequila, her second impulse, she puts a pin in. Because pregnant. Because you’re not supposed to drink when you’re pregnant. _Fuck, fuck, fuck._ It’s like her brain only knows the two words: ‘pregnant’ and ‘fuck.’ Appropriate, considering the latter led to the former.     

It was just the one night. Multiple times, yeah. But just the one night. She was tired of Tessa’s lies. Kyle was so stressed about being good enough for Lola. They’d felt so unloved in that moment, so exhausted from putting in all the work and getting so little in return. Falling into bed with each other had been like...like the world’s best naked nap. They’d woken up refreshed, a little regretful, and basically resolved never to speak of it again. If she remembered his hands on her face, so be it. If he thought about her hair spilling all over him, oh well. Those were the prices you paid for sleeping with your best friend when you were both sad and a little drunk.

Until now. Until this. This is a lot more than a sense memory. This a much higher cost. Mariah slumps back against the counter, her palm flattening over her belly. There’s a curve there that she just wrote off as stress eating. Too many donuts off the craft services table at GC Buzz. Just like the missed periods were because of the blackmail and the lies and the arrests. J.T.’s death, fucking up everything for the people she loves _and_ fucking up her cycle.    

It’s been almost four months. Oh, God. She has, like, five seconds to decide if she wants an abortion. Because Wisconsin is Wisconsin, and their laws are meant to make things as difficult for women as possible. A year or two ago, She and Hilary did a short but super controversial story about Planned Parenthood options in the state. There are clinics in Milwaukee and Madison. Something in the back of her head tells her the same doctor has to counsel the patient and then be there for the procedure…which seems like more draconian bullshit and means staying at least overnight in one of those cities, if not longer. And that’s if they allow for it at all. They could be like, “Nope, sorry, you’re too far along! You have to live with it now, and be glad you’re privileged enough to take care of a baby the government won’t care about supporting once it’s here.”

Mariah feels herself spiraling. The panic clawing at her throat, under her skin like an itch. _Stop_.  _Hold on_. _Breathe_. She can’t. She can’t think about this right now. She can’t make a decision this fast. Not without telling Kyle. Not without telling Tessa. _Tessa_. The hand she pressed to her belly comes up to her mouth to stifle a laugh. Mariah’s not even sure how _that_ conversation’s going to go. “Surprise! I’m pregnant! It’s obviously not yours!” Because even if Tessa _could_ get her pregnant, they haven’t had sex in so long that Mariah could swear there are cobwebs forming in her vagina.   

The bathroom is tiny, cramped. It’s only making her anxiety worse. She stumbles out into the living area, taking deep breaths and wondering for the umpteenth time why she didn’t shell out for something bigger. She’s a popular talk show host. Doesn’t she deserve something better than a glorified closet with a sofa bed? There isn’t even room for a crib! _Fuck_.

Mariah reaches for her phone, swipes to her recent calls. Kyle’s number is right at the top. He called her on Tuesday at 3AM from Lola’s hospital room because he couldn’t sleep. She hadn’t wanted to wake Tessa, so she sat in the bathtub for an hour. Talking in a near-whisper about ridiculous theories for the final _Game of Thrones_ season until the only thing on the other end of the line was Kyle’s even breathing, signaling he’d finally conked out.

“Do you think Cersei’s actually pregnant or just faking it?” he’d asked her. “Hasn’t she had enough babies by her brother?” she’d huffed. “So judgey!” he’d chuckled, softly. “It’s still a kid made in love, which is more than I can say for most of the people we know.”

He couldn’t possibly have realized then how those words would sound to her right now. Kyle’s a lot of things—brilliant, arrogant, funny, arrogant again—but he’s not psychic. “ _It’s still a kid made in love_.” The thought punches her just below the ribcage. And she has to laugh a little, too. Because there are a lot of twins in the world she could compare herself to, but the Lannisters were never particularly high on that list. Cassie, she thinks with a touch of hysteria, would definitely not approve.

“Mariah?” The call connects faster than she anticipated. Doesn’t he have meetings? He should have meetings. “Hey. Mariah. Are you there? You okay?” Concern fills his voice. When did Kyle become so immediately compassionate? Where’s the entitled douchebag she begrudgingly grew to adore?

“Y-yeah. I’m here.” She takes another deep breath. Clutches the smartphone tight enough for the metal edges to dig into her palm. “I…I really need to talk to you. It’s important.”

“Tell me where. I’ll be there in ten.” He doesn’t even hesitate. Maybe because she’s the person who answers his calls at 3AM. Maybe because he’s the person who makes those calls.  

Mariah looks around the apartment. Can’t imagine Kyle here, sitting on this couch where she and Tessa stream  _Broad City_ in their pajamas with three feet of space between them. “The coffeehouse,” she suggests. “Meet me on the patio?”

“Got it. See you soon.” There’s a pause before he ends the call. She hears him inhale and exhale. Almost in rhythm with her own breathing. “Listen. Whatever it is…? We’ll get through it, okay?”

He doesn’t wait for her to answer. Her “okay” hangs in the air before vanishing, unheard by anyone but her. It’s a rote response. She doesn’t believe it for a second. There is no way, no how, that she and Kyle Abbott are going to get through this. He has Lola and Summer to deal with. She has Tessa. There is no room in any of that for baby drama.  

_“It’s still a kid made in love, which is more than I can say for most of the people we know.”_

Mariah manages to say “fuck” a few more times as she grabs her coat and her keys. And she practices a few more words on the drive to Crimson Lights. Words like “I’m sorry” and “I don’t know” and “Please, don’t hate me.”

The results are all the same. She’s dead certain she’s going to end up alone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set around February 2019, while Lola is in a coma and J.T.'s trial is going on. A one-night stand between Kyle and Mariah results in what most soap one-night stands result in: utter panic!
> 
>  
> 
> _Kyle’s fucking this up royally. He knows that. But there’s no real script for how to deal with getting your bisexual best friend pregnant while her girlfriend is on the hook for blackmail and your girlfriend is in a coma._

He chokes on his Americano. Spits it all over his suit and spills the rest on the table. It’s not his finest moment. But, really, what else are you going to do when your best friend sits down in front of you, looking as pale as death—which is pretty freaking pale, considering she’s already got an Irish redhead thing going on—and tells you she’s pregnant. _Pregnant._

As far as Kyle knows, the only other person she’s had sex with in the last six months is Tessa. Which means this is on him. And that night. That one night. Multiple times, sure, but one night. Unless she opted for a throwback to his own inauspicious beginnings. “I don’t suppose you decided to be artificially inseminated, and I’m the first to know?"

She seems less shaken, more stirred. Her lip curls, and she narrows her eyes in that way that he fondly thinks of as her ‘Kyle, you’re such an idiot!’ glare. “While my mother is on trial for murder and Tessa could be thrown in jail, too? Yes, Kyle, it seemed like the perfect time to hit up the Genoa City sperm bank and turkey-baste my uterus.”

Her sarcasm is actually comforting. A reminder that this is _Mariah_. There is nobody on this planet he trusts more—except maybe his dad, but he’s not about to think about his father while processing unplanned pregnancy news. Because then he has to think about his mom and Victor and switched samples and that’s a level of “nope” he cannot address right now. Mariah’s impossibly high walls, he can do. This, he’s got. It makes him stop ineffectually pressing paper napkins to his jacket and tie. He tosses the wadded paper aside so he can reach across for her hand. “Hey. Like I told you on the phone. We’ll get through this.”

She glances down at his fingers like they’re radioactive, folding in on herself in the spindly metal chair like she’s trying to disappear. “I didn’t think that offer would stand once I actually told you what I had to say.”   

“Mariah. Jesus.” He hasn’t always been the best guy, the most supportive friend, but that hurts.   

She laughs bitterly. “I am well aware of where Jesus came from. Too aware.”

He’s known her long enough, well enough, to hear the terror beneath the jokes. To see the fear in her big brown eyes. An answering fear crawls up from the pit of his stomach. He hasn’t gotten a decent night’s rest in weeks. He’s shown up at work wearing his clothes inside out enough times that Ted has offered to sign him up for StitchFix. He’s done nothing but eat, sleep, and breathe Lola for the longest time. Except for that time he slept with Mariah and made a baby. Okay, and that time he kissed Summer at the cabin. Wow, he really is a stellar human being. Just…batting a thousand in the boyfriend department, in the BFF department. What does that say about his odds in the potential father department?   

It’s his turn to laugh. “Bright side?” he manages to get out between the vaguely lunatic noises. “At least I didn’t knock up Summer.”    

Mariah’s eyebrows go sky-high. She is not nearly as amused by the observation. “Am I supposed to be flattered that I’m your accidental baby mama instead of Snowflake?”

“Yes. No. I just mean…” Kyle’s fucking this up royally. He knows that. But there’s no real script for how to deal with getting your bisexual best friend pregnant while her girlfriend is on the hook for blackmail and your girlfriend is in a coma. “If I had to be in this with somebody, I’m just glad it’s _you_.”  

She actually looks touched for a second. Taking his words in the spirit they were delivered. But then the scared snark returns. “You being _in_ me is how we got here.”

They both pretended it didn’t happen. Fairly successfully, too. Four months of total denial. Like their entire relationship is sardonic coffee dates and late-night phone calls about prestige television. Like those stolen hours where he realized that she tastes more sweet than bitter involved two other people. In an alternate universe. The thing is, if he’s honest with himself, he was actually happy it was this universe and this woman. Drunken comfort sex is supposed to be awkward. Terrible. Something that ruins friendships. It wasn’t. It didn’t. If anything, it just confirmed that Mariah is his person. Someone he can always count on. Someone who’ll pull him back from the edge. Someone who’ll tell him that as much as he thinks he’s a Lannister, he’s really a Stark. Honorable to the point of stupidity.

He has to be honorable now. He has to be _her_ person now. “What do you want to do? And what do you need me to do?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” The tears well in her eyes then. Her cheeks go blotchy from the effort of trying not to shed them. Because Mariah Copeland is the world’s biggest badass. God forbid anyone see her break. “I…um…might be too far long to do anything about it in Wisconsin. But I haven’t really looked up the state law. Between taking the tests and getting here…”

He’s Googling Wisconsin abortion laws before she’s even done talking. He slides his phone over to her when he finds the top-ranked article that doesn’t look like it’s from a crackpot crisis pregnancy center. “If you can’t get it done here, we have the Jabot jet, remember? Use my white male privilege, Mariah.”  

“Kyle. Don’t be…that’s too…” She brushes at rogue tears, takes a shuddering breath. “I think I’ve used your privilege enough already.”

Again with the jokes. Each one squeezes his heart a little tighter. She’s still waiting for him to yell at her. To reject her. To make demands. Mariah has always felt unwanted. She’s always had one foot out the door…ready to bolt before anyone can push her away. He can’t imagine what exactly is going through her head right now, but there are enough context clues from her face, from her posture, from how she’s still fighting off crying. She’s probably thinking that bringing a baby into their lives right now would be a complete disaster. They’re not ready to be parents. Not separately and not together. So, having an abortion makes sense. But if Sharon had been given the same choice as a teenager, it’s entirely possible neither Mariah nor her twin sister would’ve been born.

“You don’t have to force yourself to carry to term just because your mom did,” Kyle points out. “You don’t owe anybody a baby just because you and Cassie got to turn from a clump of cells into people. That’s not how it works.”

“I know that.” Mariah nods. Her gaze cuts to the patio doors and beyond. Sharon’s not working today—she hasn’t run the counter since the trial started—but she’s everywhere at Crimson Lights. In the bones of the business and the building. “It’s just…Sharon was a kid when she got pregnant with us. She had no real way of taking care of a family. And then awful people took us away from her anyway. They stole _so many_ years where we could’ve had our mother. Me? I’m adult. I have a job. I have friends. I have resources that she didn’t. What kind of person am I if I terminate when I could raise my own baby and give it everything that Sharon wasn’t allowed to give me or Cassie?”

Kyle doesn’t have a whole lot of answers at his disposal, but that one he can manage pretty easily. “You’re a person making the right decision for herself.”

Mariah leans forward, messing with the sugar shaker and the napkin dispenser as she puts him on the spot. “What about you? Is it the right one for you?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he says without missing a beat. “Not my body, not my choice.”

“Congratulations on your wokeness.” She rolls her eyes. “But don’t spare me your opinions or your feelings. I know you have to have some.”

He has so many feelings. Mostly about why he exists at all, how he was almost a Newman, and how all of that makes him completely unqualified to weigh in on who should be a parent. “My mom loved me the best way she knew. And my dad has turned out to be pretty great. But I don’t have any illusions about how I got here,” he assures Mariah. “My conception was a power play. Me being born? A giant manipulation. So, I’m not about to Handmaid’s Tale you into having a baby you’re not ready for.”

“ _The Handmaid’s Tale_ , huh? A-plus reference, given where we are as a country.” She wearily gestures with his phone before handing it back to him. “But that doesn’t help me at all right now. I still have no idea what to do…and not a whole lot of time to figure it out.”   

What was it he’d said to her the other night? When they were bullshitting about _Game of Thrones_ at ass o’clock in the morning? Something about Jaime and Cersei and having another creepy incest baby with your twin brother. _“It’s still a kid made in love, which is more than I can say for most of the people we know.”_ God, the irony. If only he’d known then what he knows now.

“I’m not going to sway you in any direction. What am I going to repeat is that I’m here for you and whatever you need. You don’t want to be pregnant? I will help you look up the best goddamn abortion provider in the country, because what’s the point of being a rich asshole with family money and a private plane if I can’t do that for my friend? You want to have the baby and raise it with Tessa? I’ll be ‘Uncle Kyle’ for life. You want to have it with me? I’m in for that, too.”  

Her eyebrows climb again as she pounces on the last part of his speech. “You’d raise a baby with me? Seriously?”

Kyle shrugs…hoping it conveys ‘casual’ instead of ‘I can totally picture a little girl with your hair and my eyes.’ Because he has no business even entertaining that thought until she gives the okay. “We actually like each other most of the time. So, I can guarantee we’d be better co-parents than my uncle Billy and Victoria. Or your mom and Nick.”

He finally gets a smile out of her. It’s not big, but it’s a start. “A pack of wolves would probably be better co-parents than any of them,” she says, dryly. “But I was raised in a cult…so I really have no room to talk.”

“I’d like to think the Abbotts are a step up from a cult. Yes, we do have a charismatic white man as a leader, but there is no Kool-Aid anywhere on the grounds,” he promises. “You and our baby would be safe.”

Mariah’s tiny smile becomes a full-blown grin and then a genuine laugh. It’s the best sound he’s heard since she sat down looking like the Grim Reaper’s ginger cousin. So, of course, that’s when everything goes straight to Hell.

“I’m sorry, _what_?!” Summer stares at them both, her jaw practically unhinged from shock. He has no idea how long she’s been standing there or just how much she’s heard beyond enough and too much. She’s shaking her head, looking back and forth between them with absolute murder in her eyes. “You’re having a baby? T-together? Are you kidding me?”

Only one word comes to mind. Not “yes.” And not “no.” _Fuck_.


End file.
